2024:Program - Wikimania (2024)

Dates and times

Main conference dates

• Tuesday, 6 August: Tours and other activites around the city of Katowice. All-day hangout space at the Diament Plaza Hotel. No conference programming on this day. Some groups and committees may organize meetings for themselves.
• Wednesday, 7 August: Regular programming at ICC Katowice from 9:00 until 17:00 local time. Opening ceremony including Wikimedian of the Year in the evening.
• Thursday, 8 August: Regular programming at ICC Katowice from 9:00 until 17:45 local time. Evening activities.
• Friday, 9 August: Regular programming at ICC Katowice from 9:00 until 17:45 local time. Evening activities.
• Saturday, 10 August: Regular programming at ICC Katowice from 9:00 until 17:45 local time. Closing ceremony and party in the evening.
• Sunday, 11 August: Departures. Some activities around the city.

See the more detailed schedule grid below.

Proposed side event dates

• GLAM Global meetup – 6 August
• Common(s) cause – Public policy – 6 August
• WikiWomen Summit – 7 August
• Hackathon – 8–10 August

Expected schedule

Please note that the schedule presented above may change.

Additional rooms will be allocated for:

• Prayer rooms
• Social spaces
• Quiet room
• Childcare room

Sessions

Spirit of Wikimania 2024

This year's spirit is Collaboration of the Open. While preparing your submission, choosing potential topics and thinking about the audience, we ask you to consider the collaborative and open aspects of your topic(s).

What may the audience learn and/or how may they join your initiative? We would especially love to see submissions going beyond the existing groups, transcending the Wikimedia borders. We welcome submissions about open research, open data, open government – initiatives that may connect Wikimedians with the wide world, inspire others, and strengthen the impact of open knowledge. We also welcome submissions of people who can clearly see collaborations within Wikimedia groups, or even better, between Wikimedia groups and non-Wikimedians, collaborating in education, culture, technologies, governance, and more.

Program tracks

To make the program submissions easier to organize and review, we have suggested 12 program tracks. Think about which one best fits your program idea. If your submission applies to more than one track, you may specify a secondary track in the submission form.

• Education – initiatives and programs in education and academia
• GLAM – initiatives and programs in heritage and cultural conservation, collaborations with cultural institutions that include galleries, libraries, archives, museums, and more
• Partnerships – initiatives pairing the Wikimedia movement and its activities with external institutions to produce beneficial results
• Technology – product and technology in the Wikimedia movement
• Community Engagement – the activities aimed at increasing the number of contributors, attracting new editors, making sure they are welcome and willing to stay for the ride
• Community Health – issues related to retaining those editors and contributors that are already active. How to provide them with what they need to keep on contributing.
• Research – research with topics relevant to Wikimedia and the spirit of Wikimania, as well as research that uses Wikimedia data and content
• Diversity & Inclusion – making sure that Wikimedia projects appeal to as wide audience as possible, and can be edited by as wide group of contributors as possible, to cater for variety and to invite everyone
• Legal & Advocacy – copyrights and digital accessibility, censorship and disinformation / misinformation, public policy and human rights
• Open Data – initiatives in data use and reuse
• Governance & Strategy (alternatively, Governance or Strategy) – discussions focused on structures and reform, key initiatives from the Movement Strategy
• Wild Ideas – anything Wikimedia-related that does not fit well into any of the above or is so wild it needs a category of its own!

Session formats

We will support onsite, virtual, and hybrid sessions. We'll share more on the logistics side at a later date. Now though, we can confirm that:

• Virtual sessions need to be recorded ahead of time
• Both presenters and the audience may dial in to take part in hybrid sessions. However, live interactions between the remote and onsite participants may be limited.

Session types

• Workshop (85 minutes) – interactive format to work out a solution or provide learning experiences
• Demonstration (40 minutes) – live demonstration of e.g. a tool, possibly with interactive elements
• Lecture (25 minutes)
• Panel (55 minutes) – a discussion with a few contributors and an audience
• Roundtable (40 minutes) – a discussion where everyone has equal right to participate
• Lightning talk (5 minutes) – a quick presentation of a concept or story
• Poster (time duration not applicable–will be part of shared poster session) – posters will need to be submitted as files once accepted
• Other. Please specify in Notes section (25 minutes) – anything that does not fit into any of the above format

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FAQ

May my team of co-speakers be hybrid?

Yes.

What types of sessions tend to be accepted? Where can I get inspiration for my session?

The Core Organizing Team is looking for sessions that illustrate the power of open collaboration. Creative, hands-on and interactive sessions are always encouraged.

The most helpful way to get inspiration for your session is by reviewing accepted sessions from previous Wikimanias. You can browse session videos from Wikimania 2023 or view the program in legacy format. The program is also available for 2022, 2021 and 2019.

What if my idea submission does not get accepted, what can I do instead?

Think about contributing pre-recorded short video content to be made available on-demand or creating a 1 to 3-minute short video presenting your topic like a virtual poster session.

When will I know if my idea was accepted?

Starting in May.

More specifically, we reviewed the submissions in April–May and communicating results with submitters began in May, through June.

I did not apply for a scholarship. Will I get a scholarship if my program submission for an onsite session is qualified?

No.

Will there be speaker trainings?

Yes.

Selected speakers will receive an invitation to participate in a speaker training closer to Wikimania. They will also receive a speaker guidebook with helpful tips and tricks for building their session.

We will notify speakers about the schedule.

Contact / Help / I have questions not answered on this page.

• Write an email message to wikimaniawikimedia.org.
• We kindly request not to send us questions on social media – we use the profiles on Facebook, Twitter etc. to keep you updated, but we don't check their inboxes very often.